But though Lord Byron declared that the Lake of Geneva made him forget the troubled waters of the world; neither the Lethean efficacy of this pure stream, nor the mountainous palaces of nature, reflected therein as in a glassy mirror, could detain him from courting the charms of a softer climate. Within a few months he broke up the establishment which he had formed at Clarens, and, taking his course across the Alps, descended into the plains of the Milanese territory.

T

CHAPTER XIII.

Monody on Sheridan; Palpable Imitation of Aristo. -Poem of the Prisoner of Chillon.-Story of Bonnivard.-Publication of the Third Canto of Childe Harold.

SOON after the arrival of Lord Byron in Switzerland, he received from the managing committee of Drurylane Theatre, a request to write for them a Monody on the late Mr. Sheridan. With this desire his lordship very readily complied; and his performance was recited to the audience at the opening of the season, on the 7th of September, 1816, immediately before the play of "The School for Scandal." In this eulogium the character of Sheridan, as an orator and a dramatic writer, is forcibly drawn, but not without a slight apologetic glance at his moral imperfections; upon which,

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perhaps, it would have been the wiser course to have said nothing. The concluding part, in which the leading qualities of the deceased are brought into review, may here be quoted; though rather for the quaintness of the last thought, than on account of any extraordinary merit in the lines themselves:

"While powers of mind almost of boundless range,
Complete in kind—as various in their change;

While Eloquence, Wit, Poesy and Mirth,

That humbler harmonist of Care on earth
Survive within our souls ;-while lives our sense
Of pride in Merit's proud pre-eminence ;
Long shall we seek his likeness-long in vain,
And turn to all of him which may remain,
Sighing that Nature form'd but one such man,
And broke the die-in moulding SHERIDAN!"

Such is the extravagance of the last two lines, and their forced connexion, if they can be said to connect at all with the former part of the encomium, that we are rather disposed to be pleased than offended on learning the source from whence the conceit was derived. Lord Byron, however, must have been in a very dull humour, or not over-zealous in the work which he

undertook, when he had recourse to Ariosto for an illustration with which to wind up his panegyric. Yet so it is, that the whole of this fine compliment, in which one man, and he none of the best, is praised, at the expense of the species, is literally translated from the Italian romancer, whose words are, "Natura il fece, e poi ruppi la stampa."

No poet has availed himself more of the remarkable incidents and scenery which he has had the fortune to meet with in his travels than Lord Byron; and it is observable how the successive pieces published by him, take their imagery and characters from the localities by which the author was last surrounded. Few countries could afford a richer variety of matter for such a genius to work upon than Switzerland; and during his residence there he failed not to store his mind with an ample stock of original conceptions and combinations, drawn from the sublime and beautiful objects continually presented to his view.

It was here that he wrote, and caused to be published, his most pathetic poem, "The Prisoner of Chillon," which, without any avowed or obvious

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reason, he called a fable. The Chateau de Chillon, we are informed by the noble author, is situated between Clarens and Villeneuve; which last is one extremity of the Lake of Geneva. On its left are the entrances of the Rhone, and opposite are the heights of Meillerie, and the range of Alps above Bovinet and St. Gingo. Near it, on a hill behind, is a torrent; below it, and washing its walls, the lake has been fathomed to the depth of eight hundred feet of French measure: within it is a range of dungeons, in which the early reformers, and subsequently prisoners of state, were confined. Across one of the vaults is a beam, black with age, on which, it is said, the condemned persons were executed. In the cells are seven pillars, or rather eight, one being half merged in the wall: on some of these are rings for the fetters and fettered, and in the pavement the steps of Bonnivard have left their traces. Of this celebrated patriot, to whom Geneva is so much indebted for its independence, the following particulars are related.

Francis de Bonnivard, son of Louis de Bonnivard,